That engine, so low and distant,
takes me back to Newhaven,
the foghorns across the Forth
and Fife out there somewhere
in a starless night.
Scottish seas make you sad:
the one on the right
with its squalls and black ice;
the one on the left that rubs
on empty islands and sounds
when its dark like a song;
even the one down the bottom corner,
a runt of a sea
with its mud creeks and rotten jetties
and sly looks at England.
It’s not like that here,
the waves spark and fizz like electricity,
a perfect bowl of blue that seals the eyes.
Aphrodite came out of these waters,
bringing love,
what came out of ours?
Grey ships, going everywhere.
Hugh McMillan is an award winning poet from South West Scotland. He has just finished a book on contemporary visions of Dumfries and Galloway, commissioned by the Wigtown Book Festival. His Selected Poems were published by Luath Press in July 2015.
–Art by Milan Vopálenský & Esmahan Özkan